Katherine Belt

“Come on, Remiel, you know you can’t do that,” Alaniel pleaded as he watched his friend trying to pick the lock of the Library’s door.

“If you’d just let me in, I wouldn’t have to. Some friend you are,” Remiel gritted his teeth in frustration as he shoved a bent-up paperclip into the lock shaft. “But I am going to get in, with or without you.”

Alaniel sighed. The worst part was that he knew Remiel wasn’t lying. He was the most stubborn person Alaniel knew, not to mention one of the most convincing. He once even got Michael to postpone military training for a day so he could finish reading a book that he had, surprise, surprise, stolen from the Library chambers. Not to mention the countless choir practices he had gotten cancelled for reasons varying from a mild head cold to relaxing in the garden all day under the pretext of having a cold.

“It is dangerous to let you have any form of power, Rem, you know that, right?”

“Tch,” Remiel uttered in disgust and frustration, “are you going to help me, or not?”

“What do you want in there for, anyway?” Alaniel leaned up against the massive, ornate door that his friend was trying so hard to unlock. Part of him couldn’t help but admire his friend’s bravery, or was it stupidity? In either case, not many angels would attempt to sneak into the Library with the head Librarian standing right next to them. Even fewer would have the patience to not tackle said friend for the keys he was overtly cradling in his left hand. He gave the keys a shake as a reminder, smirking as he saw Remiel’s eye twitch with irritation while he continued to try and pick the lock.

“I need to check the Book of Mirrors,” Remiel replied in a breathy exhale as he banged his fist on the door in frustration. “I don’t understand why you won’t just give it to me. I am the only one who can read it.”

“And you just answered your own question, my friend. I have a hard enough time getting you to talk to me nowadays; you’ve always got your head stuck in a book. It’s unhealthy. And that is coming from a librarian,” Alaniel said, patting the solid cherry wood door lovingly.

“Damn it, Alaniel, just open the door already!”

“Fine. But would it kill you to say please?”

“Probably,” Remiel spat.

“Good point,” Alaniel said, trying to find the right key on his key ring. He then softly opened the door. “I still don’t see why this couldn’t have waited until library hours tomorrow morning.”

Remiel simply glared as he pushed his way past Alaniel into the Library chambers. It was pitch black and dead silent, a combination that would alarm the vast majority of the angels, but he simply walked sure-footedly towards the left corner of the huge room. He knew exactly where he was going.

“Don’t you want the light turned on?” Alaniel ran his hands against the wall near the door, trying desperately to locate the light switch. He was mildly surprised he didn’t know its exact location after all of Remy’s late night escapades.

“I don’t need the light,” Remiel retorted, yanking the book from its shelf before laying it gently on a pedestal in the center of the room.

“Watch yourself. Michael might take that as bordering on blasphemy,” Alaniel mumbled, finally finding the light switch. He quickly flipped it on.

“Mr. Goody-two-shoes isn’t here now, is he?” Remiel said, only halfway listening to what Alaniel was saying. He noticed his friend got very talkative when he was nervous; normally it was hard to even weasel a greeting out of him, let alone a full-blown conversation. On the outside, it would seem Alaniel was as laid back as they come, but Remiel knew better, and he knew that, on the inside, Alaniel must have been cowering. Not over the light comment, that was mere child’s play. But over the Book Remy now firmly had in his possession.

Alaniel leaned up against the wall, unable to tear his eyes away from his friend’s deliberate movements. Setting the book on the pedestal, Remiel then held his hand a good foot above it. The pages started fluttering, turning themselves as if a violent breeze had gripped the room. This went on for only a split of a second before the book fell open on a blank page—one of many. The entire book was completely vacant, devoid of any markings, drawings, or words. Or at least it was empty to Alaniel, and any other angel who had ever tried to read its pages. Except Remy. For the Archangel Remiel, opening the Book of Mirrors was like opening a window to anywhere in the universe.

“What do you see?” Alaniel asked, trying to keep his cool. Remiel was the Angel of True Visions, and the Book was his means of accessing his title. The way he explained it, the book was full of cryptic images, snippets of poetry, and odds and ends that were relevant to past, present, and future. It never spelled anything out, but it was a lot more than anyone else had access to regarding the timeline of angelic existence.

“Shut up. Let me concentrate. You know I can’t do this with you harping at me,” Remiel snapped.

Finally, a dull green glow began to enshroud the book—Alaniel’s sign to really shut up. Disturbing his friend now would not only cause him to punch him, but could seriously damage Remiel, disturbing his sense of the timeline as he gazed steadfastly into the quivering future. The Librarian held his breath in anticipation, carefully studying Remiel’s stoic features for any sign of recognition: a slight twist of the mouth, maybe an offbeat blink of his eyes, even a twitch of his nose would be the only sign that could possibly show that he had seen anything at all. Remiel was hardly phased enough for any other sort of reaction.

And then Remiel let out a gut-wrenching cry that shook the chamber’s very walls.

“What is it?!” Alaniel yelled, startled; he had never heard his friend raise his voice before, not even in arguments and fights.

The Book closed itself as Remiel slowly sunk to his knees, head tilted back, he stared blankly at the ceiling. All signs of his emotional outburst were already wiped away from his features, only leaving a look of melancholy realization.

“Remiel…? What happened? What did you see?” Alaniel whispered, barely able to breathe.

“Lucifer,” Remy stated flatly, still staring at the ceiling, his chin-length dark brown hair falling behind him.

“What about him? Remy? What happened, is he all right? Do we need to go find him? I’m sure he is in the choir loft right now…” Alaniel trailed off.

 Haven always hated birthdays. Maybe it was the fact that the celebrations felt like a superficial cover-up for the deep-seated American resentment of age. Or maybe it was because she secretly wished Peter Pan would knock on her window one night and she would never have to grow up. Maybe it was just because she wasn’t fond of the stereotypes and clichés brought on by certain ages; thirteen, you’re now a teenager, sixteen, you can drive, twenty-one, you can drink and drive and die. Or maybe Haven just didn’t like attention.

She was relieved she had made it the entire school day without so much as one comment on what day it was. Whether everyone around her forgot or knew her dislike of birthdays, she didn’t know, nor did she care. Lost in her thoughts, she hardly paid any attention when she arrived at her locker and began automatically keying in the numbers. She didn’t feel the cool, gray metal creak and groan under her hand as she opened the dented door. But she felt when her hefty physics book collided with her scarcely-sandaled big toe.

“Oww!” Haven cried, her voice reverberating off he empty school hall, bouncing off the seemingly endless row of lockers. She quickly cut herself off, heart racing momentarily as she strained to hear something; she could have sworn she had heard footsteps, but she settled on the idea it was just her own echoing voice she heard. “Stupid book,” she muttered to herself as she scooped down and gingerly lifted it off her foot. It would probably leave a bruise, Haven determined.

That’s when she felt a hand grab her shoulder.

“Get the hell away from me, I have pepper spray!” Haven shrieked, jolting up so fast in the attempt to face her attacker that her head met with his jaw.

“Ouch,” the teenage boy groaned, rubbing his chin and clamping his mouth open and shut several times to make sure it still worked. It did.

“Oh, Matt,” Haven said as she regained her poise, holding the physics book close to her chest, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s the whole point, Venni,” Matt replied, still cracking his jaw. “Man, you really got mace in there?” he asked in his thick Brooklyn accent; even though he had moved to the large Texas city as a kid, he never lost the way he talked.

“What do you think?” Haven countered, giving a sly smile as she threw the physics book back into her locker. It landed with a dense thud, its pages flapping feebly upon contact with the steel.

He stared at her for a moment with his dark brown eyes, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. The right corner of Haven’s mouth twitched slightly, and Matt broke into a smirk. “No,” he said confidently, “You ain’t got no mace.”

Haven slowly closed the locker door after shifting the weight of her teal backpack onto her left shoulder. She looked quizzically at the young man before her before finally vocalizing what kept running through her head, “How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Thomas replied, “But you just told me.”

“What! I can’t believe you—“

“Whoa, whoa, I’m just kiddin’,” Matt cut her off, gesturing a stopping motion with his hands. He then touched his mouth as he said, “The corner of your lip twitches when you lie.”

Haven stared at him incredulously. She had known Matt for ages, they had practically grown up together. After he had moved to Fort Worth when he was seven, they had quickly become fast friends. Their high school years had grown them apart, as they each in turn were too busy carving their place in the cliques to keep as close as they once were. After all, what is an outgoing, funny, American-born Italian boy going to have in common with someone like her? Still, it struck Haven as odd that he would notice something like that, so she asked, “How long have you known that?”

“What, your lip?” Matt said, “Only ‘bout for as long as I’ve known youse. It’s obvious, Venni.”

“So when I told you I flunked that history test…”

“Oh, please,” Matt said with a grin, “I didn’t need no lip quiver to know that was a flat out lie. You? Fail something? Neva’.”

Haven furrowed her eyebrows in thought; she was going to have to watch herself from now on. Did anyone else know this? Probably not, she tried to reassure herself, only someone as crazily attentive to detail as Matt would notice. And nobody would suspect he would notice, because he came across as the perfect poster child of ADHD. Speaking of details, Haven thought, she had forgotten to ask her original question. “What are you doing here, Matt? It’s not like you to be up here so late unless you have detention. What’d you do this time, huh?”

“Aww, c’mon now, is it too much to ask for you to be nice now an’ again?” Matt groaned, feigning that his feelings were hurt. He quickly snapped back to normal as he continued, “Naw, no detention today, though I’m about to go ta baseball practice. But I wanted to catch youse before ya left to give ya this.”

Haven barely managed to catch the tiny package that was flung at her face.

“Happy seventeenth,” Matt said with a smile. He turned around and started walking off.

“Wait, Matt!” Haven cried. She paused as her friend turned back towards her and looked at her expectantly. She couldn’t remember him ever getting a gift for her before; it was a mutual understanding between the two that made her current situation all the more confusing. “Umm, you know how I feel about birthdays,” she said, “I can’t accept this.”

“Relax, will ya? I neva’ said it was from me.”

Haven couldn’t remember the last time she ever felt this confused. “Then who is it from?”

Matt shrugged, “I dunno. Kelly gave it to me to give to you, but she claimed some random dude had given it to her. I was tired of schlepping it around, so I chose to be tha end of that crazy chain.” Matt paused here, before continuing to speak, using his hands animatedly, “What are you, part of the mafia? Laundering money? Venni, I thought I was your friend! I wants part of your cut!”

“Mr. Matteo Giovanni Annunziati, I do think that if anyone is linked to the mob, it would be you, not me,” Haven stated matter-of-factly.

“Well, I thought that was a given,” Matt said with a shrug. “New York City Italian-American born into an oddly wealthy family with our own ‘family business,’ as pa likes to say. What are the odds I wouldn’t be mobbed up?”

“Matt!” Haven cried out in alarm.

“Just kiddin’, Venni. You really gotta relax before ya blow a fuse. Anyways, I gotta get to practice before coach gets too angry at me,” Matt said, already starting to walk off. “Bye, Venni. Take care, and remember, some of us normal people actually find birthdays significant.”

“Nothing’s significant about turning seventeen!” Haven countered.

“We’ll see,” Matt said, winking at her. He then looked at his watch and, noticing the time, shot Haven an alarmed look before he took off down the empty gray halls running.

“Yeah, guess we’ll see,” Haven muttered quietly to herself as she gave in and set her backpack on the floor. She turned the package over and over again in her petite hands, studying the delicate, purposeful folds of the blue paper covered in metallic snowflakes. It even had a white ribbon tied around it. That’s when she noticed the note attached. She opened up the pristine piece of parchment paper and read the gently curving handwriting:

            “Dearest Haven,

I hope this humble offering finds you well. I adamantly suggest you keep it on your person as much as humanly possible the next few weeks. Think of it as a token of my admiration.

                                                            Love Always,

                                                            Alec”

Haven shuddered; it felt like her heart instantly hit her stomach as her eyes skimmed over the delicate writing. Most people would write off the whole incident as weird, or maybe a misunderstanding; maybe even conclude they have a stalker issue. However, something different tugged at Haven’s heart: an increasing sense of familiarity and nostalgia. But the facts remained the same—she knew nobody named Alec.

She gently unfolded the wrapping paper, the crinkling noise it emitted made her inhale sharply. Still holding her breath, Haven extracted what appeared to be a necklace from the parcel. It was a pretty little thing, molded into the shape of a bird’s wing and encrusted with a faint white gem that almost appeared to be glowing. But that was absurd, Haven realized as she studied the strange markings that were carved onto the feathers. She decided to take it to her Spanish teacher later and see if she recognized the odd language, surely a language teacher would be aware of other languages, right? Maybe, Haven thought with a sigh, turning the package over.

A second slip of paper floated delicately to the ground, like the autumn leaves from the tree right outside the hallway’s windows. She scooped it up, and read the words out loud to herself, “An ancient tongue, roughly translated as ‘protect the bearer’.”

Realizing how crazy she probably was for doing so, Haven gingerly clasped the chain and charm around her neck.

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